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"Now we need a narrator, but he clams up; what's going on?"
- Tom Servo


The Movie[]

Main article: The Creeping Terror (film)

Synopsis[]

A small town is invaded by an alien creature who terrorizes the populace.

The Episode[]

Host Segments[]

Solflag

The new SOL flag

Prologue: Tom Servo takes his new job as security guard on the SOL very seriously.

Segment One: While it's laundry day down in Deep 13, Dr. F uses Mike and the Bots to prove his theory that you can't be in a coffee house without becoming pretentious.

Segment Two: Crow creates a flag for the Satellite of Love and demands Mike salute it. Mike's loyalty is questioned when he refuses to take cyanide.

Creepingterrorhost

Crow: Love America Style

Segment Three: Mike and the Bots engage in a hard-hitting satire of Love America Style.

Segment Four: Mike goes audiophile when he sets up his stereo. He tries to convince Tom and Crow of its superior sound quality, but he only plays the repetitive dance music from the movie. The Bots are unimpressed.

GypsySwallows

Gypsy swallows Crow

Closing (Segment Five): Crow and Tom are partially successful in convincing Gypsy to swallow them like the Terror from the movie until Mike intervenes. Dr. F "presses" Frank about the laundry.

Stinger: A girl at the dance party blandly exclaims "My God! What is it?".

MST3K cast[]

Trivia[]

  • Unusual credits: The dance party music from the movie plays instead of "Mighty Science Theater".
  • The look of Deep 13 changes (more detailed foam rocks, vent pipes, and a passageway where there used to be an elevator) beginning with this episode. The alterations are not mentioned or "explained" until Bloodlust!.
  • This was the first episode produced to feature Mike's blue jumpsuit (though episodes were often aired out of order at this time, so its first broadcast appearance was in The Skydivers).
  • In Segment Four, Mike is seen using a marker on a CD. This alludes to a rumor that existed at the time which claimed that marking the edges of a CD with a green felt tip pen would improve its sound. This has since been debunked.

Obscure References[]

  • "And to think he's getting $4.35 an hour."
In 1994, the federal minimum wage in the United States was $4.25/hr, so Servo is apparently earning a little more than that with his security job. Adjusted for inflation, that would be $9/hr in 2023 (still higher than the minimum wage of $7.25/hr).
  • "Ponch and Jon are calling!"
Ponch and Jon are the heroes of CHiPs, a TV show about California highway patrolmen from the late 1970s and early '80s (though Jon's character was eventually written out).
  • "Looks like the inside of Robert Morley's nose!"
Robert Morley was British character actor.
  • "Oh, no—cops!"
Mike is imitating the Simpsons character Snake.
  • "Darkness at the edge of town!"
A reference to the Bruce Springsteen album "Darkness on the Edge of Town".
  • "Oh God, it's Far Out Space Nuts!"
A reference to the Sid and Marty Krofft TV show Far Out Space Nuts.
During this sentence (Oh God...) Tom is making strange noises. He is imitating the sound effects used in Forbidden Planet (1956), when the invisible monster is inside the spaceship while the crew is sleeping.
  • "Geez! My back is killing me! I came to this planet because I heard they had Doan's pills!"
 Doan's is an over-the-counter medication specifically marketed for back pain relief.
  • "Annette Funicello wore khakis!"
A play on a Gap ad campaign from the mid-1990s. Annette Funicello was a Mouseketeer on The Mickey Mouse Club and later starred in several popular teen-centric beach movies.
  • "Apparently, Dan Blocker had been there!"
Actor Dan Blocker is best remembered for playing the bulky Hoss Cartwright on Bonanza.
  • "We push more logs before 9 A.M. than most people do all day!"
A parody of an old U.S. Army recruiting slogan: "In the Army, we do more before 9 A.M. than most people do all day."
  • "Are we inside Television City?"
A reference to the CBS Television City studio complex in Los Angeles.
  • "He thought it was Boog Powell!"
Boog Powell was a MLB first baseman and left fielder from 1961 through 1977, most notably as a member of the Baltimore Orioles dynasty that won four American League pennants and two World Series championships between 1966 and 1971.
  • "...no trace of either Ben or Jeff." "Or Akbar!"
Akbar and Jeff are two characters from Life in Hell, a comic strip by Simpsons creator Matt Groening.
  • "Is she really going out with him?"
A reference to the Joe Jackson song "Is She Really Going Out With Him?"
  • "The Unbearable Whiteness of Being!"
A play on the novel and movie The Unbearable Lightness of Being.
  • "I shoulda gone to DeVry instead of Harvard!"
DeVry University (formerly known as the DeVry Institute) is a nationwide chain of adult-education centers that are not known for being intellectually-demanding or prestigious (unlike Harvard).
  • "Suddenly it's Wild Strawberries!"
Wild Strawberries is a 1957 film directed by Ingmar Bergman about an unhappy old man who goes on a long car trip and has his life changed by passengers that he picks up along the way.
  • "El Kabong will kill it!"
El Kabong is the guitar-carrying, Zorro-esque alter ego of Quick Draw McGraw. He was so named for defeating his enemies by giving them a "kabong" on the head with his guitar.
  • "Only Tom Paxton can save us now!"
Tom Paxton is a folk singer/songwriter.
  • "You can see why the British Invasion was so easy."
The British Invasion refers to the worldwide increase in popularity of music groups from England (notably The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, and The Who) during the mid-1960s (reignited and continued by the new wave of British heavy metal in the 1980s).
  • "Sponsored by Thom McAn!"
Thom McAn is a brand of shoes and a former retail chain often found in shopping malls. By 1996, all Thom McAn outlets were closed.
  • "He slides like Ron Santo."
Ron Santo was a third baseman for the Chicago Cubs in the 1960s and early '70s.
  • "Ray Manzarek on organ!"
Ray Manzarek was keyboardist for the Doors.
  • "Now somewhere in the black hills of South Dakota/There lived a young boy named Rocky Raccoon!"
Opening lyrics to The Beatles song "Rocky Raccoon".
  • "When the agents reached the Spahn Ranch, Manson and his followers were nowhere to be seen."
Spahn Ranch (a movie ranch in Los Angeles County, California) eventually became notorious for being the primary residence of Charles Manson and his followers in 1968 and 1969. It had previously been one of the locations used to shoot The Creeping Terror.
  • "This is Andy Warhol's Driving."
A reference to artist Andy Warhol's experimental film Sleep, which consisted of eight hours' worth of footage of a sleeping man.
  • "I'd walk a million miles for one of your smiles." "Mammy..."
Mike and Tom are mimicking singer Al Jolson, who appeared in blackface in The Jazz Singer, the first film made with integrated sound.
  • "He sounds like Screamin' Jay Hawkins"
"Screamin'" Jay Hawkins was a singer who recorded a popular version of the song "I Put a Spell on You" that included him making absurd sounds similar to those made by people claiming to be speaking in tongues as part of a religious ritual (Satanic or otherwise).
  • "He knew what he had to do." "Become a huge fan of... LARRY STORCH."
Larry Storch is an actor who is primarily known for having appeared alongside Forrest Tucker (of The Crawling Eye) in the television comedies F Troop and The Ghost Busters.
  • "Hey, take it easy! Roger Corman needs to use this set later!"
Roger Corman is a film director and producer who is notorious for making his films as cheaply as possible, often by recycling sets and props.
  • "Jack Nicholson's courteous driver school..."
This refers to an incident from 1994 in which actor Jack Nicholson used a golf club to smash the windshield of a car that he believed had cut him off in traffic.
  • "After his release, Stacey Koon gets a job at Cray Computers!"
Stacey Koon is a former LAPD officer who was charged with using excessive force in the beating of Rodney King. Cray is a supercomputer manufacturing company.
  • "Not quite as pithy as 'Either these curtains go or I do'..."
Urban Legend holds that the 'curtains' quote was the last thing said by the famously witty person Oscar Wilde before he died.
  • "Superman's dead."
Crow's response to the letter claiming "Superman is a graphic novel, not a comic book" is based on the 1992-1993 DC comic book event The Death of Superman.
  • "Please, God, I'm only 17."
Dead at Seventeen” by John Berrio is a poem that has often been re-printed in the newspaper advice column Dear Abby. It is written in the voice of a reckless teenage driver who has just suffered a fatal car crash. "Please, God, I'm only 17" is the last sentence.

Video Releases[]

Creepingterrorvhs

MST3K VHS

  • Commercially released on VHS by Rhino Entertainment in March 2000, the episode was also released at the same time as a part of a 3-VHS set with Bloodlust! and The Side Hackers.
  • Commercially released on DVD by Rhino in November 2002 as part of The Mystery Science Theater 3000 Collection: Volume 1, a 4-DVD set with The Skydivers, Catalina Caper and Bloodlust!. The DVD release is a double-sided disc, with the MST3K version on one side and the un-riffed movie on the other.
    • Re-released in September 2015 by Shout! Factory.
      • Re-release DVD special features include the extended trailer for The Creep Behind the Camera, the Screamfest 2014 trailer for The Creeping Terror, and a Q&A from Screamfest 2014 on The Creep Behind the Camera with Frank Conniff and Trace Beaulieu.
  • Available for rent or purchase on Amazon's streaming service.


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